Personal computers in the first decade of the 21st century have become ubiquitous, from highly compact laptops, to personal digital assistants (PDAs), to phones with web surfing and data entry capabilities. Text entry on these devices is accomplished in primarily one of three ways: miniaturized keyboards; virtual-keyboards, where a keyboard is shown on a touch screen, and input is done by tapping on the letters; and letter or word recognition, where symbols are individually written on a touch sensitive screen or equivalent surface and then translated to letters in the currently activated text field by a computerized symbol recognition system. The process of writing or data entry through miniaturized and virtual keyboards can be cumbersome, especially for those with large fingers or poor coordination. Text entry via standard or semi-standard letter recognition has met with mixed results with many users finding it frustrating and inaccurate. Symbol recognition systems that use non-standard characters which have little or no stroke relationship to the target alphabet symbol have proved to be unserviceable. What is needed for the 21st century is a universal writing system designed exclusively for use on computers which includes a new symbollogy consisting of a very specific set of simple and definitive stroke patterns. These patterns when strategically arranged become highly serviceable to those familiar with any Latin derived language. Coupled to that symbollogy must be recognition program specifically designed for that particular symbollogy. This character/program integration produces the highest level of recognition that can be achieved for a symbol recognition program. The result is a comfortable, low error, high speed, stationary writing system. The set of stroke patterns under this invention offer the most simple, intuitive, non-classical system of text input which can be devised for Western style electronic writing. Additionally, combining this technology with a spoken letter output program would be very useful to the visually impaired.
Although numerous systems have been devised that attempt to recognize printed or cursive characters, their recognition accuracy is poor. The more recent systems utilize a nine or twelve point grid system wherein the stylus must pass within a minimum distance of a certain number of select points to establish identification. However, poor, or clumsily written characters still elude proper identification. The combining of low-complexity characters which have been designed for ease of identification with a recognition program aimed at accurate distinction of those specific characters will achieve higher accuracy results and offer greater writing speed than a system designed to use and recognize an existing complex script.
The electronic writing system of the future must be accurate and so intuitively familiar enough to the user that it may be written without hesitation as to allow symbol writing at letter note taking speed. Accuracy requires that each symbol be easily computer distinguishable from one another despite poor penmanship or a pre-biased slant of the user's handwriting. Intuitive familiarity requires that one hundred percent of the symbols match the “feel” of the target alphabet so as to speed up the user's initial learning curve but more importantly, to prevent latent brain/hand conflicts from arising at high writing speed once the system has been mastered.
The following system utilizes a symbollogy designed to abbreviate, yet closely approximate, the essence of the writing strokes used in any Latin derived alphabet. The symbollogy is converted to its alphabetic counterpart based on an extremely accurate, multi-step identification process. In the present invention, the symbology was designed around the recognition system's capabilities and limitations so as to invoke the strengths of the XY Cartesian coordinate mapping system and the specific multi-step identification criteria resulting in enhanced identification accuracy. The majority of the prior art encompasses recognition systems that were designed to identify existing alphabetic characters or alphabets that are slight variations thereof, and as such have less accurate positive identification thresholds.
Henceforth, a simple, accurate handwriting recognition system would fulfill a long felt need in the PDA, cell phone and computer industries. This new invention utilizes and combines known and new technologies in a unique and novel configuration to overcome the aforementioned problems and accomplish this.